Joie Chitwood, president of Daytona International Speedway, and Steve Farmer, vice president of business development at UNOH, unveiled the race trophy for February's UNOH Battle At The Beach in Daytona.Jason Christley/NASCAR

NOTEBOOK: Daytona Trophy Unveiled

Whelen All-American Drivers Honored At Grand Champions Awards

By Travis Barrett, Special To NASCAR Home TracksDecember 7, 2012 - 12:59pm

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The UNOH Battle At The Beach is just over two months away, and on Friday morning at the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Grand Champions Awards, a piece of throwback hardware was introduced.

Daytona International Speedway president Joie Chitwood III unveiled the inaugural Battle At The Beach trophy during the awards ceremony. The trophy is a replica of the trophy presented to Fonty Flock for winning on the beach circuit at Daytona in 1954.

Lee Pulliam, the 2012 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series national champion, was among those who were impressed.

“I always like old trophies, the history of NASCAR and where it comes from and what it began as,” Pulliam said. “I think that's an important part of this sport. To see that trophy being a replica of one of the first ones given out, that's really neat. It's pretty special deal. It would be pretty sweet to take that thing home.”

Pulliam will have to wait until February to have his shot at winning the trophy for himself. The inaugural Battle At The Beach is slated for February 18-19, 2013, during Speedweeks in Daytona. It will be contested on a .4-mile oval on the track's backstretch.

With the addition of the Battle – featuring K&N Pro Series, Modified and Late Model races – Daytona International Speedway is the first track to feature every level of NASCAR-sanctioned racing at its facility, as the short-track teams join the three national NASCAR Series and the Grand-Am Series at the famed speedway.

Incorporating the track's storied history within NASCAR was an important component in designing a trophy for the Battle At The Beach.

“When you think about a trophy for an event, you want to do something special. So for us, we went back in our archives and looked at the the actual trophies that were given out at the beaches,” Chitwood said. “The trophy that you saw today was actually modeled off our 1954 trophy. So, that's pretty cool for us that we can look to the future by adding a new event but we pulled from our past something special to make it unique.”

Pulliam, one of 10 drivers locked into the starting field for the Late Model race at the Battle by virtue of finishing in the Top-10 in the final NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Div. I national standings, is excited for his opportunity to race at Daytona.

He said without the Battle At The Beach, he might never have had such an opportunity in his career.

“The opportunity to go to Daytona, me as a driver, I don't have a lot of finances to move up in this sport. That's kind of what it takes in this day and time,” Pulliam said. “To me, this is probably going to be my only opportunity to run at Daytona, so it's going to be a big deal for a lot of us.”

TWICE AS NICE: Joe Aramendia was one of 23 state and provincial champions honored Friday during the Grand Champions Awards, but he was one of only two drivers to have won multiple track champions in the process.

Aramendia, who won 18 races in 27 starts, won track titles in the Modified divisions at both Houston Motorsports Park and Thunderhill Raceway. California state champion Scott Winters grabbed Super Late Model championships at both All-American Speedway and Stockton 99 Speedway.

“The difficulty is running an extra track, running each week for basically 27 weeks,” Aramendia said. “I think we had two weekends off this year. It makes it hard on the family life, but if you love something, you just go after it.”

Aramendia has won three of the last four Texas state championships with four state championships overall in his career.

He was thrown a curveball in the 2011 offseason, when a switch from Late Models to Modifieds left him without a full-time ride for that year. He competed part-time at both Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Fla., and Mobile (Ala.) Speedway before returning to full-time competition back in Texas in 2012.

Aramendia responded by winning the Texas state championship by 216 points – the largest margin of victory in any state or province.

“I start out the year planning on making that my goal,” said Aramendia, whose 8-year-old son and 27-year-old nephew have also started blossoming in their own racing careers. “I don't have any intentions of going anywhere. I've got some real good sponsors at home, and they enjoy going to the short tracks and I enjoy racing the short tracks.”

But the veteran from the Lone Star State also said that he's not sure how much long he'll be doing the racing himself, particularly as his son starts to get older. It's possible, he said, that 2013 could be his last season behind the wheel.

“I don't see my driving career lasting too much longer, to be honest,” Aramendia said. “I think I'm going to go after it again next year, though. One more.”

DIVISION FINALISTS: NASCAR recognized the finalists in several of its divisions during the Grand Champions Awards on Friday morning.